[ubuntu-uk] Upgrading to 12.04 ....

[Bruno Girin]

On 29/04/12 22:54, alan c wrote:
> On 29/04/12 21:04, Alan Bell wrote:
>> it says "do you want to upgrade?" and you can say yes or no to it.
>> Clearly "yes" is the preferred option, but why shouldn't we encourage
>> people to upgrade to new cool stuff that will make their experience
>> better (which is the aim of it, sometimes that doesn't work out so
>> well)?
>
> Why? because some regular users like my 80+ year old friend (sadly now
> no longer with  us) easily confuse an up'date' with an up'grade'.
> Whereas updates are usually fairly safe, upgrades are not. Upgrade and
> update sound similar and seem similar. They appear even in the same
> window in the same situation.
>
> Some users are ordinary non technical people. Update or upgrade is all
> the same to them. One can consider that such ordinary human beings
> are, or are not,  capable of using the first user account to have
> access to the admin level. My 92 year old relative, who only does
> online shopping and is closely administered by tech family members if
> changes are needed has a restricted account, but it is not appropriate
> for an independent active 84 year old who goes to windows club every
> week and uses Windows (was XP) routinely, and can and does expect to
> install stuff from say the ubuntu software centre when he needs to in
> his dual boot laptop.
>
> There are strong moves to make Ubuntu good for a vast user base, but
> many existing users are diy users like my 80+ friend, and in terms of
> a discussion list like this one, they are novices and do not know
> what, say, a partition is, like most Windows users don't.
>
> It is such users that will get tripped up by Upgrade vs Update. This
> is especially because the enthusiasm of our community and devs to
> encourage upgrades is aimed at the traditional enthusiast linux based
> os user, not the less competent  joe or jane. Version upgrades are
> notified by default and the reason a health warning would be
> appropriate is because the least technical user is *likely* to fall
> for it, like my friend.

Alan, that's the best explanation I've seen so far of why it's important
to highlight the difference between "update" and "upgrade". You should
open a bug and explain it this way. Example wordings would be useful, e.g.:

Update = minor updates to existing software, no big changes.

Upgrade = major upgrade of the whole system, including new software
versions, possibly significant changes in UI, needs a lot more time to
do, etc. If worded correctly, it could act as a warning that it's an
operation that takes time but also be an opportunity to highlight the
new stuff that people may be interested in: get a few screenshots in,
explain changes, a bit like what the installer does but before people
actually commit to the upgrade.

Cheers,

Bruno